Hydrocarbons such as methane and carbon dioxide that are captured in ice crystals on the world's ocean floors store more energy than all fossil fuel reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas. Although these deposits provide a tremendous source of reusable energy, release and leakage of methane and other greenhouse gases pose a serious threat to the Earth's atmosphere. Analysis of arctic snow cores has shown that Earth's atmosphere contains about two times as much methane and thirty percent more carbon dioxide compared to any other time in the last 160,000 years. These greenhouse gases cause deleterious changes in the atmosphere. Increased presence of greenhouse gases results in greater trapping and accumulation of solar energy in the atmosphere, causing evaporation of the oceans and facilitates global climate change such as more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, torrential rainstorms and floods, more frequent tornadoes and lightning strikes, thereby resulting in increased weather-related economic loss and damages to human investments in farms, homes, and other industrial ventures.
The world population and demand for energy has grown to the point of requiring more oil than can be produced. To maintain the progress achieved by the Industrial Revolution that currently depends upon annually burning fossil resources that took more than one million years to accumulate, alternative sources of energy need to be utilized to produce sufficient energy to meet the ever-increasing energy demands of a growing population along with greater demand per person.
Previous efforts to harvest and produce energy from methane hydrates on the ocean floor have failed because of difficult problems including:                Oceanic hazards such as storms, corrosion, biofouling, and collision hazards with ship traffic.        Difficult ocean floor terrain such as adversely sloping areas where methane hydrate deposits are found. In addition, depending upon the temperature, hydrates may only be stable at depths greater than 1000′.        Unstable environmental conditions including the factors of (1) and (2) combined with the unstable nature of the methane hydrate deposits at temperatures above the freezing point of ice and at pressures less than about 480 psi.        Expense and inefficiency of storage and transport of hydrocarbon hydrates. In addition to the factors discussed above, methane hydrate is relatively low in energy storage density because it is mostly water in the form of an ice crystal that surrounds a molecule of methane.        Difficult mining situations with a high degree of environmental impact. Conventional approaches to mine values from the unconsolidated thin gas hydrate deposits that are mixed with silt and limestone on the ocean floor cause unacceptable production costs and environmental impact.        
It is therefore an object of some embodiments described below to provide a system and method for harvesting gas hydrates to reduce their effects on the atmosphere and converting the gas hydrates to usable sources of energy and durable goods.